Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/166

 their false teeth can always be promptly detected The duck-bill, interesting because it is an egg-laying mammal, is found in Australia. It is supposed that at one time all mammals were egg-laying; later, these early mammals were replaced by more highly organized descendants. The duck-bill has a bill like a duck, fur like a mole, webbed feet, and is about as large as a terrier dog. It burrows in the bank, as a muskrat does, and thousands of learned men have journeyed to Australia to see it, as an interesting and rare link in the chain of life. An ant-eater having a bear-like snout, and also an egg-laying mammal, is found in Australia. Egg-laying mammals are found nowhere elese in the world I have heard it said that the women of Australia are a year or two behind New York or London in the fashions. I do not know as to that, but it is certainly true that the shop girls in Adelaide are just adopting the big bunches of hair with which American shop girls disfigured their heads a good many months ago At 4 o'clock this afternoon we walked to the railroad station, and took a train for the Outer Harbor, to go on board the "Anchises." The distance is fourteen miles, and the train made so many stops that we did not get our first sight of the ship until an hour later. It was lying not a hundred yards from the station where we left the train, and we went aboard at once. The Outer Harbor is a lonely place; nothing there except a railroad station and a loading-dock. Most of the passengers had joined the ship at Sydney or Melbourne, and looked us over critically as we walked up the gang-plank. I found I had a large room to myself, on the upper deck, and Adelaide had one just like